For those on the same journey, here's what's working and not for me: I'm testing out both 32 bit versions of Noatikl on Windows XP, using loopMIDI because I can't figure out how to make MIDIox work (at the same time thinking to myself that it's a function that's built in to the Mac). The vst shows up in Reaper and not in Acid 6 or Ableton Live 8.22. Unfortunately, Reaper crashes constantly so I'd hate to have to rely on it for anything.

I'm new to this, but it appears to me so far that loopMIDI will allow MIDI messages to travel from one program to another but if I want to send the synth signals along with it I need to use the vst. Is that correct?

On the whole, my takeaway is that I'm discovering why the Mac is the preferred platform for music production and I'm thinking of changing my computer before I purchase any more software.

We have an update for Noatikl 2 coming soon, which has been tested quite extensively using loopMIDI.

Noatikl 2 can generate its own sounds, or send MIDI via a MIDI port (e.g. loopMIDI!), or both at the same time.

On Windows, you can use either the standalone version of Noatikl 2 for this purpose, or the VST plug-in. On Mac, you can use the standalone version of Noatikl 2, or the AU plugin.

When Noatikl 3 comes out in the near future, for Mac and Windows: this will be 64-bit only and is designed to work on Mac OS or Windows 10 (though it should also work on 64-bit versions of Windows 8 and Windows 7). From Noatikl 3, we will not support Windows XP or any 32-bit versions of Windows; Windows XP is getting quite long in the tooth nowadays...

Mac OS X has built-in MIDI port support; on Windows, there seems to be a requirement to install 3rd party software such as loopMIDI for some reason!Mac computers are certainly more expensive than Windows computers, but I certainly prefer them these days - I have come to like Macs a lot, and now use them as the primary development system for Intermorphic (when we started, our primary platform was Windows - times change!).